


gloria in excelsae regina

by pinkcupboardwitch



Category: Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Wingfic, fluff with Astrid? I'm amazed too, only fluff for Astrid though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:54:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29016174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkcupboardwitch/pseuds/pinkcupboardwitch
Summary: Glory to the highest queen.Astrid takes her latest pet out for a spin.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	gloria in excelsae regina

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired shamelessly by a wingfic AU a wonderful anon dropped in on ashintheairlikesnow's Tumblr.

_Glory to the highest queen._

-

There are those who have wings, and those who have not wings. Such has always been the way of the world. A law immutable as the rising of the sun, the hunger of magic for more. Laws that even wingless urchins grubbing in the dirt beneath the castle walls must accept, even if they accept nothing else.

Athos has always been the clever one. From workshop to workshop, gutter corner to palace atelier, he’s filled them with sketches and mechanics. Later on, models of wax, then models of wood and metal. First the size of a hand, then a forearm, then large enough to carry a man aloft. The twins grow adept at teasing out the different varieties of canvas and silk, finally at spinning moonlight into a sail stronger and lighter than any wind.

The furthest London had a man named da Vinci, Athos is fond of saying. Well, he was no king, but he had some good ideas. War machines, for instance. Now where did I put…

He has always been the clever one. Astrid is…different. More direct. Blunter. Less interested in theory and experiments, more interested in working with what she has to hand.

Athos creates, when the things he needs are not available. Astrid adapts. Astrid seizes.

“I suppose you think me very brash,” she says without turning around as she slips her hood down and turns her face up to the stars. She’s always loved starlight, the same as her twin.

Behind her, feathers rustle and drag over the stone of the palace roof. “I think my lady knows what she wants.” The man’s soft voice is silken as the blot of his raptor’s wings against the sky.

“I know who I want too.” Astrid smiles, pleased with herself. Pleased with the city spreading silver and tiny beneath her like a sugary treat waiting to be eaten. Pleased with the man radiating hatred and helpless obedience behind her. She takes a deep breath and lets the cloak fall from her shoulders. “Hold me.”

Silence. Then a step. Then another. Astrid counts them. Up to just behind her, where she stands with her booted toes just pointing out over the abyss. He could push her off now and even she with her magician’s reflexes would never be able to claw her way back in time.

His arms settle around her instead. One crosses her waist, the other across her chest like a bandolier.

Astrid is a tall woman, but she has always felt very small next to the winged ones. Like a mouse next to a hawk, maybe, or a mote of dust next to an angel. Something about them is not quite human: the tiny swift movements of their head, their hands perpetually crooked like claws. She used to hate it. Now she relishes the feeling, leaning back against her pet and smiling up at the wind. A mote of dust may still command an angel, if it holds the hooks to the angel’s soul.

“Fly,” she says to the moon.

Holland falls like lightning from heaven.

Swift, swift - swifter than a horse on a battlefield charge, swifter than a sail on the sea - story by story they plunge and still his wings have not unfurled -

 _I should have brought goggles,_ she thinks inanely, tears streaming from her eyes before the wind, and then _I wonder if he means to kill us both like this_ _\- no, I swear I’ll not die weeping_ -

And then the updraft, and they soar.

The shriek she’d been holding back spills from Astrid’s throat now. It starts as a scream, ends in laughter; Holland tenses all around her when she laughs. Her nails have drawn crescents of blood where they’d dug into his arms, but for once she pays no heed to the scarlet scent. She licks her lips, opens her mouth, and whoops.

Behind her Holland spits her loose hair out of his mouth. “Braid your hair next time, lady!” For once he’s shouting to be heard over the wind; she feels as much as hears his words deep in his chest.

“You bet your lovely eyes there will be a next time!” is all she shouts back. She thinks she hears the Antari groan behind her. Astrid laughs again and opens her eyes and mouth wide. She’d thought the city fine back then? She has the world before her now for a feast. Silver and wide open and lovely, and above it all the colorless stars.

 _They’ll put us in stars one day_ , she thinks. _I will eat this world and the next and leave the stars for a memory._

Holland’s wings give another powerful beat as they climb higher, and Astrid’s stomach lurches. She digs her nails harder into his arms and turns her face up for more.

There are those who have wings, and those who have not wings. Such has always been the way of the world.

And there are those who snap the laws of the world in two between their hands and throw them away, and rise laughing through the sky.


End file.
